Transnational Environmental Law, 7:2 (2018), pp. 347–373 © 2018 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S2047102518000092 ARTICLE Legal and Policy Pathways of Climate Change Adaptation: Comparative Analysis of the Adaptation Practices in the United States, Australia and China Xiangbai He* First published online 6 May 2018 Abstract To successfully respond to climate change impacts, it is imperative that governments structure adaptation laws and policies around their country’s existing legal framework. The United States (US), China, and Australia have all made adaptation attempts through legislative, executive, and judicial action. However, because the systems of law and governance of the three countries differ, the ways in which adaptation issues are managed vary. State and local adaptation planning functions as the leading adaptation pathway in the US, whereas in Australia judicial intervention is more influential than executive action. By contrast, China relies primarily on policy to manage adaptation issues. This article argues that the differences in adaptation responses are the result of a complex combination of factors, which include climate politics and awareness of adapta- tion, the status of environmental principles, and the role of the judiciary. This analysis helps in identifying the opportunities and barriers associated with different adaptation solutions, and also contributes to cross-jurisdictional learning. Keywords: Climate change adaptation, Adaptation policy, Adaptation planning, Environ- mental principles, Climate change litigation 1. introduction Adaptation and mitigation are two indispensable pillars in addressing climate change and are closely interlinked. 1 However, they also differ in many important aspects. 2 * Kenneth Wang School of Law, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu (China). Email: xiangbaitree@163.com. I wish to thank Bruce Huber, Justin Gundlach and Alexander Zahar for their valuable comments, and am also grateful for the valuable advice from four anonymous peer reviewers. All errors remain mine. This article is funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Young Scholar Research Project on Humanities and Social Science, Project No. 16YJC820010. 1 J. Verschuuren, Research Handbook on Climate Change Adaptation Law (Edward Elgar, 2013), pp. 8–9. 2 R. Swart & F. Raes, ‘Making Integration of Adaptation and Mitigation Work: Mainstreaming into Sustainable Development Policies?’ (2007) 7(4) Climate Policy, pp. 288–303, at 291. terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102518000092 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Notre Dame Law Library, on 18 Jan 2019 at 03:23:41, subject to the Cambridge Core